Conventionally, liquid oral medicines are administered with small spoons typically holding 5 ml. The medicine is poured from a bottle into the spoon. Where smaller doses are needed, e.g. for children, the spoon may be part-filled, or a smaller spoon used. It is not easy to pour a small dose accurately from a bottle. An alternative method is dosing by squirting into the mouth from a syringe. It is then easy to charge the accurate amount, but syringes are difficult to fill unless the container is specially adapted, and much more difficult than spoons to clean and dry.
Special problems arise when dosing very young children and babies, who may be unable to swallow all the intended dose at once. It is no use dispensing a dose accurately if the child chokes or spits part of it out.
It may be considered to use a pump dispenser in which, by a predetermined stroke of a piston-cylinder pump chamber mounted on a product container, a uniform volume can be dosed from the container to an outlet nozzle. Such dispensers are known for dosing animals. If a child could be dosed directly from the nozzle, a convenient way of providing fast, predetermined doses without a separate spoon would be available.
However pump dispensers in general have drawbacks in respect of this use. Fluid residues remain in the outlet nozzle after each stroke. These may dry out or become contaminated. In practice, pump outlet nozzles cannot be adequately hygienic even if a cover cap is provided. Moreover pump mechanisms are valved for forward flow. If a child sucked on the nozzle they might receive an excessive dose.
Here we put forward new ideas for dispensers which address various issues discussed above.